"We get up very early on the farm," Andrea told me as we walked inside the barn. "When I was little, my parents taught me to put the needs of our livestock first."
"That's an interesting concept," I murmured, taking in the musky scent of animal bodies.
"We get up so early that we feed the animals and do our chores before breakfast."
"You must be starving when you get in."
"Yes, but my parents always told us that the animals got to eat before we did. If the animals didn't eat, neither did we."
Andrea scooped up one of the baby chicks, handing it to me. She smiled while I ran my fingers over the downy feathers. "How adorable," I remarked.
"We have a special feed for them. We'll sell some of the chicks. But the others we'll eat in six months' time."
Scooping two more into her hands, she held them up in turn. "This one's Mary and that one's Martha. Martha's the busy one."
"How do you know they're females?"
Andrea laughed. "Because they're such hard workers."
"Now, here's where my heart lies." She took me to a fenced-in area. "These are our steers."
"They look healthy and sleek."
"They can be stubborn, too."
Those big cow-eyes appeared placid and passive to me. "What do you mean?"
"I used to show them in 4-H. One of our Grand Champions helped pay my way to college."
With a chuckle, she continued, "When I was younger, I'd show calves that weighed a lot more than I did. Most of the time, they'd walk me. In the ring, I had one that decided it wasn't going to move at all."
"What happens when you sell the steer?"
"It depends. Most of the time, it's processed for meat."
"Doesn't that bother you, to eat your animals? You named two of the chicks Mary and Martha, but tell me you'll have them on your dinner table in six months. Don't you care about them?"
"Oh, yes. I love my animals. That's why I go out of my way to make sure they're well taken care of and comfortable."
She took me out to see the pigs. However, I could smell them already.
"Our pigs are very attractive animals," Andrea remarked. "We make sure they're vaccinated against diseases."
"You've got a little canopy for them."
"Pigs don't sweat much. So they get very warm. That's why they enjoy wallowing in the mud. The canopy provides shade to protect them from the sun and acts as a shelter from adverse weather conditions."
Andrea chuckled. "See that sow? We call her Gloria."
"She's huge!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, we hope this year she'll be a winner at the fair. But she enjoys wallowing in the mud so much that it's a chore to get her cleaned up and presentable."
"If she's a winner?"
"She'll be in someone's freezer."
"But you've got her named. How can you stand to part with her? She's like a pet."
"In many ways she is a pet."
"How can you stand to think of her on someone's dinner table? How can you bear to have her on your own dinner table?"
"We love our animals," Andrea explained. "We feed and water them, keep them comfortable and sometimes play with them. But their eventual purpose is to feed humans. Every farmer understands that."
On the way home I went to the grocery store and picked up a package of steaks. After all, I was helping some anonymous cow fulfill his purpose to feed humans.
Laurie Lechlitner can be contacted by email at Lauriel ech@aol.com.